Should we be adding Keyboard Shortcuts to our websites?

opensourcee

OpenSource

Posted on May 10, 2024

Should we be adding Keyboard Shortcuts to our websites?

I remember when I was young, and sometimes the mouse would just stop working. When that happened, oh, it was good: I could try to fix the mouse, but it was much more fun to try to do things without any clicks whatsoever. There's nothing like a good self-imposed challenge to motivate us.

Things have evolved, and nowadays the trackpad is so close to the keyboard that using it feels as convenient as typing for me, sometimes even more. I find myself using a mix of keyboard shortcuts or terminal commands with a few clicks here and there.

But I see shortcut hints everywhere.

I see shortcut hints

Take, for instance, VSCode. Do you know all of them by heart and use them? I don't. I use the terminal for sure, but other than that, I click everywhere.

VSCode Shortcuts

I recently found this beautiful website, Resend. It even kind of overdoes shortcuts to the point that, after you move your cursor, you realize that you could have just typed a letter to go to that page. I wonder if people move the cursor over the button and then decide to type instead of click. I do it, just for fun.

Resend

Then there is the mother of all. Superhuman, advocating for productivity in emails:

Superhuman

This one is from Plane:

Plane

Even GitHub -- never used it:

GitHub

Decipad makes it very complex, allowing users to customize shortcuts - or better, formulas, as they call:

Decipad

We could go on and on, but we want to hear from you. What do you think? Should we be adding keyboard shortcuts to our websites?

💖 💪 🙅 🚩
opensourcee
OpenSource

Posted on May 10, 2024

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